When the Assault on Planned Parenthood Becomes Personal

My relationship with Planned Parenthood is personal. When I was 19, I was in an abusive relationship and when I found out I was pregnant, Planned Parenthood was there for me. I credit the organization with saving my life. They provided me with all of the information I needed to make an informed decision. I am not ashamed or embarrassed; I am simply grateful that I had a choice and a place to turn.

Only 3 percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services and now, as a 26-year-old freelance writer, I depend on Planned Parenthood more than ever. I have no health insurance to speak of and I struggle to articulate how invaluable and necessary the services provided by Planned Parenthood are to me and so many women like me. Without them I would have no access to birth control, pap smears, breast exams, or pelvic exams.

I’m not the only one who understands the importance of Planned Parenthood. This was illustrated by the Walk for Choice event that took place Saturday, February 26. As the brainchild of Raven Geary, the event was originally scheduled for the streets of Chicago, but as word spread, cities across the nation banded together and created their own Walk for Choice events. From Los Angeles to New York City, men, women, and children walked the streets in support of women’s rights and in defense of choice. It couldn’t have come at a better time, either.

Los Angeles’ Walk for Choice began in Downtown L.A.’s Pershing Square and it was co-organized by Jessica Roy, a 24-year-old freelance copywriter and creator of the blog STFU Conservatives. Roy and Geary were online friends through Tumblr and when Roy became aware of Geary’s Walk for Choice event in Chicago, she decided to help put together the Los Angeles event, which drew about 300 supporters.

Roy, who grew up Catholic and of the mindset that abortion was only okay in instances of rape and incest, began identifying as pro-choice in high school and is “disgusted” by the GOP’s blatant attempt to set women’s rights back 60 years.

“The GOP has declared a war on women,” Roy said. “They’re truly trying to take our reproductive rights away. They’re trying to redefine what rape is and Rep. Bobby Franklin from Georgia introduced a bill that would mandate state criminal codes to change the term ‘rape victim’ to ‘accusers.’ What’s happening is disgusting and worrisome and we need to fight back.”

These feelings were echoed by many women in attendance at Walk for Choice Los Angeles and like myself, Brandy Zzyzx, co-owner & art director of Los Angeles’ Zzyzx Gallery of Natural Science, credits Planned Parenthood with helping her be the independent woman she is today.

Zzyzx grew up in a small town in rural Pennsylvania with abusive, working class parents and when she became pregnant after having sex just one time at the age of 15, Planned Parenthood was the only place she could turn.

“Where I lived there was only one place within a 20-mile radius for a teen girl to get any sort help with her reproductive needs—help that didn't require parental consent; help that was not religion-based; help that wasn’t judgmental, and that that place was the local Planned Parenthood,” Zzyzx said. “I came from a household of fear, control, and religion and I was uneducated about how to safely engage in sex.”

Planned Parenthood referred Zzyzx to an out-of-state clinic that did not require parental consent and after her procedure, she continued to go to Planned Parenthood for reproductive services through her teen years.

“My parents did not supply or think to supply any reproductive health care for me. If Planned Parenthood wasn’t there for me as a teenager, I would have never received a pelvic exam, a pap smear, birth control, or any other type of gynecological exam until I was an adult. It’s sad, but it’s the case for many young women from working class families,” Zzyzx said.

Many young women today take their right to choose and the services provided to them by organizations like Planned Parenthood for granted. They are unfamiliar with phrases like “back alley abortion” and do not connect the dots between the struggles of early feminists and the services they have access to today.

Thirty-two-year-old Zzyzx chronicled her abortion for I’m Not Sorry, a website that celebrates a woman’s right to choose and she’s concerned that people don’t understand the seriousness of what’s happening.

“If people do not wake up and speak out for the causes they take for granted, everyone will lose. Many people just don't understand what’s at stake. They think it doesn’t affect them, but it does; it affects everyone,” Zzyzx said. “By providing reproductive and preventive services to teenagers, women, and the working poor, you are giving them options and providing them with control of their lives. This ability to delay starting a family is good for everyone. Children born to a stable home have a better chance at succeeding and productive families lead to a productive society. For a government to willingly ignore the basic needs of its poorest citizens to push through with a religious agenda is criminal.”

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Comments

Thank you so very much for putting all of my enraged, incoherent thoughts about this matter into words.

03/11/2011

valkyrie256

Hello TinaV,

Planned Parenthood was initially organized to provide the social services as you so eloquently write about in you article.

I am a retired interim manager, executive director, CEO, what ever the Non-profit calls their top manager reporting to the Board of Directors. I go into organizations that have strayed from their mission and there board feels that bringing in someone new from the non-profit executive pool will be replacing the failed manager with a manager that thinks just like the failed manager.

Very large and very small non-profits that are very well funded often times have a board that relies on the executive manager that reports to the board who does not perform his duties to the board, the organization members, and the volunteers. In other words, they don't manage and monitor their organization.

I have not made a case study of the Planned Parenthood failure to focus on their mission in New York City nor read any more than that which is available to you for your own information. The fact that what happened was a gross failing of Planned Parenthood management all the way to the top cannot be denied.

People often have their own idea of how to fulfill an organization's mission and get it wrong or very wrong. Strong management helps to prevent this and it is difficult to find strong management to work at non-profit pay levels. I certainly have no fortune amassed from my work.

You have every right to be angry and hurt. I offer you this to consider. Find the board of Planned Parenthood. Each member is listed on their income tax Form-990, as required by law.

The Form-990 can be found at a city library, usually the central library. The librarians are always thrilled, literally, to be able to use their expertise to help anyone find what they are looking for. Form-990's can be found online. I don't have the url but google it and you will easily find it for the TAX Year 2009 possibly even 2010 if the Chief Financial Officer is OCD.

Write to these people and express your outrage at their apparent mismanagement of Planned Parenthood by having an executive management team that failed to maintain the focus of the organization on their mission and failed to manage the organization ethically and insure ethics training is a training focus of any organization and it is especially important for a non-profits.

Write about this and tell everyone you know in your various circles of friends and acquaintances to write the board.

Politicians will work their own agendas and right now fighting that s most probably futile.

Make sure planned Parenthood or its successor has a strong board. You can most easily do that by writing to all of the large contributors and tell them you insist on strong ethical management. You can make a difference here. Twenty years ago one call, positive or negative, was the equivalent of 20,000 people with your same point of view. Large contributors will listen.

You are an inquisitive person by nature or you could not be successful as a writer and this article bears out this point. Become a corporate watchdog of Planned Parenthood or its successor. Request a copy of the annual report and find the Form-990 each year. Study these documents. If you don't see something you consider to be a major component of any nonprofit, write them. Don't like the answer or don't get a reply, then enlist others.

Your article is compelling and a sad commentary on parenthood in many areas no matter what the income level.

You are angry but I sense you are heartbroken for the girls and women who may be affected by the board of directors' and executive management's failure to properly manage Planned Parenthood. In this case, Congress has become the vice-principal, the disciplinarian of a failed organization management team.

I ask you to look beyond the politics because they will change, deals will be cut. The federal government may reduce or eliminate funding. To soon to tell. Planned Parenthood's board and executive management should be just as visible as the House of Representatives for its failure to manage contributions wisely. Remember every dollar spent is a contribution, even the government's dollar.

The board of directors of Planned Parenthood failed their responsibilities to the contributors and the communities and clients they served.